LETTER: Trying to be honest and open

Published:14:38Updated:14:41Thursday 28 April 2016

Share this article

The letter you published from Robert Carey about the EU referendum meeting in Chichester cannot be left unanswered. It was not the claims at the meeting that were “seriously flawed” but those in Mr Carey’s letter.

To take just his first example, we indeed stated that our weekly contribution to the EU was £350 million, but we did not “concede that the true figure ...was £160 million”, implying that the first figure was wrong.

In answer to a question we confirmed £350 million as the gross figure and added, in the interests of full disclosure, that after various amounts returned to us on EU terms and conditions we were still out of pocket by the net figure of £160 million.

Given the extraordinary amount of propaganda and distortions in this campaign, on a scale I cannot recall in forty years in politics, it is indeed sad that we should be criticised for trying to be open and honest and truly factual. Mr Carey’s other complaints could be answered in similar vein, but I fear you would not have the space to print them.